Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 9, 1990 TAG: 9004090206
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The youths were returning home after a Junior Beta Club field trip to Washington, D.C., said Elmer Kendrick, the club's sponsor at Elkhorn City Elementary School.
While food poisoning had been suspected, physicians determined that some of the students were suffering from a viral infection and had slightly elevated levels of carbon monoxide in their blood, Kendrick said.
He quoted physicians as saying the high carbon monoxide could have been the result of traveling in heavily congested traffic in the Washington area.
All the youths were released after treatment at Roanoke Memorial, Lewis-Gale and Community hospitals.
The Junior Beta Club is for students who have a grade point average of between 3.0 and 4.0. The group had toured the Smithsonian Institution and several major tourist attractions in Washington.
Rescue workers were called by one of the bus drivers. Both buses stopped at Truckstops of America in Troutville shortly after midnight Saturday.
"We had stopped about 10 miles earlier," Kendrick said. "Some of the children had become violently ill."
The students were experiencing weakness, shortness of breath, nausea, fever and stomach cramps.
About 50 youths, ages 10 to 14, and 25 adult chaperones were on the two Yellow Coach charter buses.
Kendrick said a third bus belonging to the bus company stopped and offered to contact state police by radio. He was unsure whether that contact was ever made.
The children were taken from the truck stop to the hospital by six ambulances from Troutville, Blue Ridge and Hollins, said Penny Taylor, lieutenant of the Troutville Rescue Squad.
Firefighters from Troutville assisted with lights and crowd control, Taylor said. Other ambulances, requested from Fincastle, were later told they were not needed.
A spokesman for Lewis-Gale Hospital said eight children were treated and released there. Three were examined at Community Hospital and seven at Roanoke Memorial.
The bus had stopped at a Harrisonburg steak house about two hours before stopping in Troutville. The children started becoming ill about an hour after the dinner break, Kendrick said.
"I've taken children on trips for several years, but I have never been involved in anything like this," Kendrick said. "It makes you anxious, it sure does."
by CNB